


the thousand names of home

by ninemoons42



Series: long way home [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bookstore Owner Ignis Scientia, Fluffy Ending, Gen, Inspired by Poetry, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, War Veteran Ignis Scientia, happy birthday Ignis Scientia, the answer is in this fic!, where are Noctis and Prompto you might ask?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-07 03:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13425420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Ignis passes his days quietly: he looks after his own bookshop, and he deals with the scars left on him by his war, and he tries to make friends and keep the ones he's got.It's the visitors to the shop who make the days worthwhile.





	the thousand names of home

**Author's Note:**

> New year! That means a chance to celebrate the Chocobros' birthdays properly. And it happens to be dear lovely Ignis's birthday coming up first on the calendar, and I'm so pleased to write something for him!
> 
> (Oh, the things I come up with when I'm laid up in bed with a fever.... I guess I wanted friends and cuddles so this is what I wrote.)
> 
> \-----
> 
> References!
> 
> Nockitty looks like [this](http://www.catori.ru/cats/fler/fler85/cat_023_700.jpg), with eyes like [this](http://petermorwood.tumblr.com/post/169657329612/felren13-madmaudlingoes-markv5-%D0%BC%D0%BD%D0%B5-%D0%BD%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%81%D1%8F).
> 
> Prompupper looks like [this](https://www.petpremium.com/wp-content/uploads/ppbr/breeds/golden-sammy_profile_350x400.jpg), puppy version.

He almost regrets it, one early morning at the beginning of the year, when he opens the window over his kitchen sink, and he’s immediately assaulted by the lingering stink of firecrackers: and where those had come from, and who had been setting them off, those are considerations that vanish from his mind as he hurriedly passes his hands beneath the cold-water tap and turns away. Closes the window again and draws the curtains shut for good measure, and that’s a shame, because it also means he’s locking away the cold nip of winter as it lurches into its last few weeks, and he likes the scent of the snow, the faraway dreams of pine-forest and frost-kissed earth.

But he doesn’t like firecrackers: neither the smell of them nor the very many forms that they might take, and especially not the way they go off, hammering rat-tat-tat that shreds and gnaws on his nerves.

Two years and change, he thinks, two years going on three, since he’d last had to deal with the very real threat of bigger and worse explosions going off around him. Going off beneath his own hands, even, if his nerves failed to hold and he cut the wrong wire, or he cut the right wire in the wrong way -- 

There had been a time when he’d been more than up to the task of dealing with the many, many variables of improvised explosive devices, and the hazards of stopping them from going off.

He’s steady, though, in the here and now: he can ignore the memory-pain that shoots up and down his left side. The pain begins just above his eyebrow and sizzles down to his toes and then he makes himself breathe, makes himself think about the terrible thoughts draining away, and they do. The pain does. It flows away and he’s left there, gasping a little, but still himself. 

Still here.

Still here.

“Steady, steady,” he murmurs to himself, and he stands up as straight as he can and turns back to the business of washing his breakfast dishes. Cheerful chips on the yellow-glazed earthenware and the rotund belly of his favorite coffee mug, deep and capacious pumpkin-shape, with its handle painted a sloppy green. Aranea’s sense of humor, he thinks, and he really needs to reply to her latest postcard -- he’s let two days pass -- she’ll be cross with him, he thinks, if he delays any more.

He’ll have to do it in the shop, as soon as he has a spare moment.

Through to his bedroom and he just drapes the duvet back over the foot of the bed, fluffs the pillows back up, and as he dresses he catches sight of himself in the antiqued mirror with its cracks around the edges and -- he sighs, and shakes his head, because maybe he’s been able to deal with his dark thoughts and maybe he’s been able to deal with the ghosts of his pain, but he still looks like he’s expecting to get shot at, any moment now.

And that cluster of white hairs at his temple is definitely growing.

He reaches out to his own reflection. “We’ll be fine,” he says, and he ignores the tremor in the hand that touches the mirror. “We’ll be fine.”

Layers of clothes to keep him warm against the chill, and on top of everything else the jaunty far-too-red scarf with its lopsided stitches, that he’d received as a gift from a book blogger who happens to live nearby: and he thinks he’ll tell Cindy, the next time he sees her, that he’s never owned anything so warm and so cheerful at the same time.

Short walk to a place that is now as familiar to him as the small, cozy boundaries of his home. Gray and maroon bricks in stepped lines, making up the facade of a first-floor shop with its tall glass window in the front. A door painted spring-green, and three steps leading up to that door, with last night’s snow already swept away into little piles against the banisters.

He’s halfway through unlocking the door when there’s a shout, hailing him: “Good morning, Ignis!”

He’s smiling even before he finishes turning around. 

Familiar face beaming at him, and the stark contrast between her all-black outfit and the cheerful chocobo-printed lining of her coat, the flowers in bright-printed cloth pinned to her lapel. 

“Good morning, Miss Amicitia,” he says, and he laughs softly when she pulls a funny face at him, pout and pulled-in eyebrows and all. 

“I don’t like it when people call me Miss, it’s like, don’t they know I dress the way I do so they won’t call me that?”

“You never know,” he teases, as he opens the door for her, “respectable ladies might all be wearing chocobo-printed coats these days.”

“Is that something I don’t know because I don’t go to those fancy-schmancy high-society teas? Then, then I’ll never go,” Iris says, pretending to turn her nose up. “And also they can go wear something else. I’ve had this coat for ages. I was here first.”

“I know you did.” He moves around the shelves and the stacks and the stashed-away armchairs, and he turns on the lights and the bookshop comes to life around him, golden-glowing sconces placed all at different heights. “And I’ve never seen anyone else carry it as you do.”

“Flatterer,” Iris laughs, the sound still muffled where she’s on her knees next to the shelf labeled _New Titles_. “Have you ever worn a chocobo-printed coat?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” he says, and he throws an apologetic smile in her direction. “I have just never had the time or the resources to track one down. That one you’re wearing, it’s not even getting knocked off any more.”

“Mine’s an original,” she laughs back. “And the ones you can get online at the auction sites cost a mint. I’d love for you to wear one though. I’d take lots of pictures.”

“And maybe it’ll help keep me warm,” he says, and then he steps into the back office to go through the motions of starting the day. Desktop computer, Internet connection, a handful of letters that are mostly bills and package-delivery notices. Last night’s receipts, neatly tallied and clipped for filing. A quick phone call to a nearby sandwich shop, inquiring after the day’s specials. A small pile of shredded paper-fluff, some from yesterday’s packages and some from recent government-related filings. (It’s the end of one calendar year and the beginning of another, so he’ll have to think about licenses and similar papers soon, and he jots a note to that effect on the whiteboard above his desk.)

“Coffee?” he calls back into the shop proper.

“Always,” is Iris’s reply.

And he grins, and goes to coax the ancient coffeemaker in its little cubbyhole next to his desk into creaky cranking life. He buys the beans himself, three different types, and he mixes them to an exact set of proportions that he’s known almost all his adult life. He’s kept himself going through the late nights with it, and he never hesitates to share it with people like Aranea, with Cindy -- with Iris.

Who is now approaching the counter with a short stack of books carefully cradled in one arm. “Any opinions?” she asks, as he takes the chair behind the till.

“Coffee in three,” he says, first. 

Three titles in her stack, this time, and he’s actually familiar with one of them: he taps the blue-gradient cover and smiles. “I know you said your brother’s read his share of romances, but this one is -- this one might be a little over the top even for him. If I remember, there’s a prophecy, and the person named by the prophecy has to die, and his lover literally does everything he can, and a few things he probably shouldn’t, in order to derail that prophecy. In order to stop the heavens from claiming the hero’s life. I’m not saying it’s not good; I’m saying it’s melodramatic.”

“That’s right up Gladio’s alley, so I’ll take it.” 

“I hear good things about it, if that helps,” Ignis says as he rings up the sale and hunts for change. “Though I do hope that if there’s a sequel, the heroes don’t have to face the idea of sacrificing themselves again. Once would be more than enough, I’d imagine.”

“Yeah,” and then the coffeemaker buzzes irately.

Ignis smiles, and holds up a finger. “Hold that thought.”

There is still only one mug in the entirety of the bookshop, but it’s been washed and scrubbed of yesterday’s stains, so he fills it partway and brings it out to Iris.

The door rattles open and then shut, and for a moment he wonders -- then he sees the shadow of a tall woman in black as she browses the craft books section. Contemplative look in the lines of her face as she pulls out a title and peers at the back.

“Good,” Iris says, as she sips the coffee quickly. “Good as always. Sure I can’t convince you to send some over, I mean with this book?”

“I keep telling you,” he says, and he’s not even feeling sick or sad, when he shrugs. “The coffeemakers they have, in the military, those things never brew right. You have to bring your own out into the field, and that’s if your officers will even consider letting you do it. I won’t subject the beans to that kind of insult.”

“But your officers let you bring your own coffee,” she says.

“Because they realized I couldn’t function properly without it. Nor the rest of the team.”

He clenches his hands into fists below the counter, so she doesn’t see.

Movement, in his direction: and he realizes that she’s reaching out for him, that she’s trying to draw him close.

He lets himself be comforted by her quick hug. “Sorry,” he mutters, when he steps away.

“No, why are you apologizing? I should know better,” Iris says, after a red-cheeked moment. “I mean, Dad, and you, and Gladio. Would’ve been me, too, right? So, people who might have reactions to things. No judgment, right, just -- try not to get them started on those reactions.”

“It’s a tedious problem,” he says, quietly.

“That -- that’s a good word for it,” she says. “And if you ever need anyone to talk to about it -- maybe put me on the list.”

“It’ll be a very short list,” he says, as he bags up her book and its receipt. “And you will be near the top.”

“That’s what I want to hear. Take care of yourself, Ignis.”

“And you, Iris,” he says.

Holds up one hand in farewell, when she pushes the door open and then turns back to offer him a soft smile.

The woman who’d been browsing the other shelves brings a pair of books to the till, patterns for delicate crocheted lace, and he nods and rings up her purchases, and it’s only after she’s left that he realizes that she’d never said a word all throughout.

He spends the rest of the morning looking after the running of the shop, and from time to time the door opens to admit people: three boys in school uniforms. A pair of elderly gentlemen, who take their time browsing, and hold each other’s hands all the while. Half a dozen little girls trailing quiet and orderly behind their female minder. A burly man arguing softly under his breath, cordless headset visible in his right ear. A woman with wild dark hair and snow on her shoulders, who asks him for cookbook recommendations and buys the top three titles he lists for her.

A little after lunchtime there’s a lull, and he drags the chair out from behind his desk in the back office towards the till, so he can sit and write on a postcard. Sunrise over a seascape on the front. On the back, he writes:

_Situation normal, not that fucked up. Since I know you still want me to tell you about the bad things, I am pleased to report I haven’t been waking up from nightmares. Or, more precisely, I don’t remember waking up from nightmares any more. Better than nothing, yes? The bookshop is still too quiet most days and I will start worrying about it soon, but not now. I have regulars who prefer it to be that way. Come by soon. I’d like that quite a lot. And please, please, stay safe._

He has Aranea’s current mailing address ready on a pre-printed label, so he just sticks that on opposite his handwritten message, and then the whole thing’s ready to be stamped and sent off; he drops it into the clear sturdy box with all the other things he has to run to the post office. The bright colors of the postcard clash with the plain white-paper wrapping of various books and other publications.

“Hello?” 

He looks up from yet another round of inventory -- this time he’s up to his hips in the speculative fiction shelves -- and smiles at another familiar face. “Talcott,” he says, “over here.”

“Hi Ignis,” the boy says as he turns his usual cap backwards. “Hope you’re hungry. Monica insisted on adding stuff to your order. Do you like blondies?”

That makes him sit up straight, and peer at the boy over his glasses. “I hope you’re talking about things to eat.”

“Of course I am. Brownies, but no chocolate?” Talcott says as he gets to the till and drops off a large paper bag. “She’s trying something new out, I guess.”

“I really am quite thankful, but -- I don’t want to put her out of business,” he says as he brushes dust and torn packaging material from his hands. 

The boy shrugs. “We’ll survive.”

He passes a tip over with his payment, and shrugs back when Talcott raises an eyebrow at him. “Wouldn’t want to put _you_ out of business either.”

“Tell Monica I said thank you,” Ignis says, as he follows Talcott to the door, and flips the sign hanging near the doorknob to CLOSED. 

“See you tomorrow.”

Soup and a sandwich, and the promised blondie, a crumbly and fudge-soft square that’s larger than the palm of his hand. It’s rich on his tongue with a thin melting puddle of cream cheese inside. He takes one bite out of it and makes himself save the rest for later, and he’s still thinking about it even as he makes a fresh pot of coffee and opens the shop up for the rest of the day.

He’s seeing another clutch of students out the door, half-listening to the chatter about a school assignment and a novel about magical girls with oracular abilities, when he spots the flash of black across the street: lurking, he thinks, waiting for the noisy people to go away.

He smiles, a little, and deliberately doesn’t close the front door all the way.

Sinuous slide of sleek black fur -- if a little snow-stained -- past his feet and into the nearest armchair, and Ignis turns on the lights and regards his four-legged visitor with a small smile. “Hello again, Noct,” he says, quietly.

Waits for the cat to react: if it ignores him, or if it hisses at him. He still remembers the sting of the last time the cat had felt defensive, and it had been an awkward thing, iodine stains everywhere as he bandaged up his right hand. 

So he studies the cat as it decides what to do with him. Piercing bright blue eyes, that make him think of long winter nights full of stars. A gracefully elongated body, muscles rippling visibly beneath the skin, from its twitching nose to the tip of its long tail. Three of its paws are white, and the last one, the left front paw, isn’t entirely black either, as the fur on it seems to turn a rich brown-rust when the cat sits in a pool of light -- as it’s doing now. 

Silver-chased leather-like material around its neck for a collar, to which is attached a plain oval tag.

Today, the cat flicks its astoundingly large ears in his direction before it curls up on the armchair and seems to go to sleep.

He leaves it to its nap, and goes back to working on the accounts, and from time to time he glances in the direction of the occupied armchair.

If on his circuits of the shop as he goes to dust, or to restack some of the books, or to check one title or another to see how many copies he still has left, he approaches the cat to pet its back -- there’s no one in the shop to see him, anyway.

There’s a flurry of early-evening emails to tend to -- a series of online orders that he’s grateful to receive, and that are easy for him to work on -- and then closing time rolls around, and -- he’s cleaning the coffeemaker when there’s a soft _meow_ next to his shoe.

Wincing only a little with the movement, Ignis stoops and picks the cat up in his left arm, and the cat wraps its tail around his elbow -- strong soft curl, making him think of trust -- and he croons at it, appreciatively. “So you’ll pay attention to me now? What is it, do you want something to eat or to drink?”

Slow blink, winning, and rapid flash of a pink tongue.

“I’ve got work to do,” he says, gently: whereupon the cat blinks again, and then _climbs_ him.

Only the past few weeks of this slow acquaintance allow him to relax, to stay still, as the cat works its way lightly up his arm, and then drapes itself across his shoulders -- it’s long and lean enough that it easily spans the breadth of him -- and then it starts purring, and the vibration is soothing and sweet and Ignis sinks into the nearest chair, and hunches over, and makes himself breathe. Makes himself take in the purring and the quiet of the night and the warmth of the bookshop around him, and it’s so much more than he’d ever hoped for.

So much more than -- his ears ringing with pain and the howling echoes of a makeshift bomb going off. Shrapnel digging in around the orbit of his left eye, and the rapidfire horror and danger of permanent blindness even as he was jostled and jolted into the medevac vehicle. Shards of glass and chips of stone and other things he still couldn’t think about, even now, working their way out of his battered skin and muscles. 

And the numbing, dead relief of hoping he’d still managed to save the lives of the others in his unit: he still receives letters from them, these days, and he’s grateful for the fact that they’re still talking to him.

The purr of the cat that lodges itself beneath his ear goes a long way towards wrapping the trauma in soft blankets, towards pushing it away from the immediate surface of his thoughts, and he reaches up to rub rough circles into the scruff of the cat’s neck, and its purr only redoubles in intensity as he does so.

“Thank you, Noct,” he says, and not for the first time he wonders whose home this cat has wandered away from: he certainly didn’t give it that name. It’s the one word engraved into the tag on its collar, and it’s the only name the cat has ever responded to. 

Noct the cat stays on his shoulders as he completes the list of the day’s chores, and then -- it leaps away from him as he’s stepping out the front door, as he’s drawing the last sets of curtains and awnings shut. Soundless landing on the snow-slushed sidewalk, and then it bounds off across the street and to wherever it spends its nights.

“See you tomorrow?” Ignis asks, hopeful small question that is lost in the lateness of the hour. 

Of course there is no one and nothing to reply, not even the faint echo of a retreating _meow_.

He doesn’t quite trudge home, nor keep staring at the stones beneath his feet -- but he does miss the vital warmth that had been draped over his shoulders.

///

He wakes up to pain that shudders and lurches up and down his nerves, the next morning, and he lies in bed and tries to ignore the tears that are falling into his pillows, and he has to force himself to get up and get on with his day.

He nearly falls out of the shower, and it’s just -- it’s a small thing, really, reaching for his towel -- he’s done it a million times -- but he overbalances it somehow, and his heart is crashing its panicked beat loud in his ears when he plants the palm of his hand on the tiled walls, somehow steady and somehow catching himself so he’s still mostly upright, a long bowed bent curve of shivers -- 

It’s too much, too much, and he regrets every moment of waking up from those awful terrible dreams, burning up in desert air and burning up in the aftermath of that explosion, and he makes himself reach for the cane that he keeps in the basket next to the front door of his apartment: slim sturdy length of black.

If he’s sternly, stupidly grateful for the fact that the sidewalks are clear of snow today, there are only the books in the shop to see it.

Reluctantly, he opens up for the day, and he makes a resolution to stay near the till, near his office, so he can sit down and stay sitting down. 

The shop is quiet, so quiet, and shrouded in shadows, and it’s both easier and more difficult to push away the dark thoughts.

Not for the first time, he wonders whether all of this is just a fever-dream: whether he’s not actually still stuck in that hospital bed, sedated beyond all reason, waiting to open his eyes to a world half-lost.

Not for the first time, he wonders what the point of getting on with the rest of his life is.

He watches the front door with blank eyes and -- then there’s a scratch, and a quiet yowl.

“What,” he says, and he nearly recoils from the sound of his own voice: but he’s also up and on his feet, slow weaving progress through the stacks, and he pulls the door open and Noct the cat bounds in at him, crying almost frantically as it bats at the hems of his trousers.

“I don’t understand you, I can’t understand you,” Ignis hears himself say, shocked to hear the edges of tears in his words. “I don’t know what you want.”

He watches as the cat sniffs at his cane, and then he’s watching that tail in its sinuous flick and twitch, heading towards the back office -- it doesn’t even need the help of the books in their shelves to leap up onto the counter where the till is located -- it sits right next to the latest stack of outgoing books and meows at him, low and compelling.

“Sorry I snapped at you,” he says when he catches up. As he passes his fingertips between those large ears. “Not -- not a good day for me, not today. And that’s not your fault at all. I just -- I feel like terrible things, that’s all.”

The cat chirps at him, as if it understands. 

As if it forgives him.

And he can’t help but pick up the cat and gather it into his arms, and sob quietly into its dark fur, and this time, this time Noct purrs and tries to inch closer, tries to knead circles into his shirt.

///

One morning, he leaves his apartment early in order to detour to a pet shop, and he asks the girl behind the counter for recommendations on cat food.

The hours are taken up by a stream of deliveries from several publishers, and at some point there’s a knock on the front door -- it’s an unnecessary thing, when it’s still wedged open with a pair of large air-freight boxes -- and Ignis looks up and can’t help but stare.

“Morning.”

Weak winter sunlight and creased fatigues, mud and who knows what else still stuck to her boots, but at least Aranea’s not wearing her jacket or any of the belts on which she carries her usual sidearms -- just a down vest and a long scarf and a pair of gloves.

At least her hair looks like it’s finally back to its normal length, when he remembers the last time he’d seen her -- the ends of her hair hacked roughly to just past her collars, after a string of missions gone wrong in all kinds of small and significant ways.

“Aranea,” he says, quietly, and he only limps a little when he hurries across the shop to take her hands and usher her in. “I -- until when?”

“I had a week’s furlough,” she says, and he’s missed that rough low voice of hers, though it’s missing its usual hectoring tones.

“Had?”

“Yeah, had, I’ve already pissed most of it away sleeping.” Her laugh is too quiet. “Still feel like I could sleep another year, too, and then maybe I’ll feel better.”

“I know exactly how that feels.” 

He finds the one pair of side-by-side armchairs he keeps in the shop, and he guides her into one, and isn’t ashamed about dropping into the other. 

“Ah, well, I should have come here sooner, I know -- should have come by to tell you I got your card, at least,” she says as she plays with the ends of her braids. “Have you been okay?”

“Not all the time. And I should be asking you that question.” He clears his throat, and considers offering her his coat. “You look like hell. If you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I do feel exactly like ten thousand screaming hells, so yeah, don’t hold back on my account,” she says. “You know I’m coming up to the end of this tour?”

He does. “Yes. I believe you’ve a couple of months left.”

“If they don’t pitch me into one of those stupid extended-duty things, yeah, that’s exactly as long as I’ve got. Seriously, Ignis, I think -- I really think I’m getting out this time. I don’t care if my country still needs me, I have nearly nothing left to give it. I am so, so fucking tired of -- of everything.” She waves her hand, carelessly.

And he’s still the only one who knows, he thinks. Still the only one who sees the tremor in her hand, that worries her and keeps her awake at night. 

He grips her shoulder firmly. “If you do decide to take that step, then may I make a few suggestions?”

“Why did I know you were going to say that.”

He nods. 

Waits her out, as he always has.

“ -- Yeah, hit me.”

“Get some sleep,” he says. “Go on vacation. And then, if you can bear to come back here: I could use some help, here. I think.” He smiles, and gestures at the shop. “It wouldn’t exactly be hard going, and I like to think I wouldn’t be that bad at -- giving you orders, or asking you to do things.”

“Yeah, you’re all that and a bag of chips -- but you could never afford me,” she says, and she almost laughs. 

He smiles and plays along. “Oh, well, I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Of course you didn’t, I’m the brains of the operation, remember?” 

It’s a relief, he thinks, when her grin loses its hunted haunted edge. 

“And on that note,” he says, “I’ll go and make the coffee. Stay as long as you like.”

“Give me a blanket and I may never leave,” she says as she slouches further into the chair.

The minutes fly past, somehow, and he’s halfway into tallying the new books when he hears her groan. “Fuck. Knew I forgot something. Ignis?”

“Here,” he calls from the till. “I presume you’ll be wanting that coffee now.”

“Yes, I really fucking do, but also: here.”

He watches her approach the counter: watches her as she extends a hand to him. 

Not an empty hand; there’s a book in it, carefully wrapped in yellowed paper.

He slits the paper open. Looks at the title: _The Thousand Names of the Senses_.

“Aranea,” he says, trying to smile, and feeling like all the lines in his face -- all the thoughts in his mind -- are full of his feelings.

“All those long watches you were muttering about that book,” she says, looking away. He can hear her shifting her weight from foot to foot. “All those long watches you were literally just reciting pages and pages of it from memory, and I remember Biggs and Wedge staring at you like you’d lost your mind, and I just, I was staring at you, too, all right? And, and, you know -- I’m not going to tell you I went and looked everywhere for that. I’m not. Except that I am, now, right? I’m doing exactly that. Telling you, I mean. Shit. I got lucky, I found that somewhere, it still has its old owner’s name on the inside pages and -- don’t cry, damn you,” she says, already scrubbing her knuckles across her eyes. “Don’t cry, Ignis, I swear I’ll kick your ass -- ”

So he tries to swallow his grateful sobs; so he takes her hand and squeezes. “I -- I’m grateful, Aranea. I promise I am. It was so very, very kind of you to think of me and, and get this book for me. Thank you so much.”

“Was nothing,” she insists.

///

He spends his entire lunch break reading the opening chapter of _The Thousand Names of the Senses_ to Noct, the next time the cat makes an appearance.

This is five days after Aranea’s departure.

The cat makes biscuits in his lap, and once -- only once -- meows inquiringly, at the end of one passage, so Ignis laughs and blows his nose and goes on to the next group of verses.

///

He’s opening all the windows in the bookshop all the way to catch a rare hour of midwinter sunlight when: “Ignis!”

He knows the voice, but not the fear in it: and he makes himself all but leap from the front step, all but seize a trembling Iris’s shoulders to help steady her, to bear her up.

Tearstains dried stiff on her cheeks. Hair mussed and wilting into her collar. Even the ribbons wrapped around her wrist seem limp and frail, jolting in time with her wavering steps on the sidewalk.

He half-hurries her into the very back of the bookshop and settles her in his chair behind his workdesk, and he stands over her despite his twinging knee. Asks, as quietly as he can, “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Gladdy, it’s Gladdy,” she says, eventually, around deep gulping breaths. “I have to catch a flight out in a couple of hours, his HQ got in touch with me and they said something, something had happened to him and they’d have more news for me when I got there. Dad was so upset, he wanted to come but he’s not been feeling well these days, the shock of traveling might hurt him, and everything else -- oh, Ignis, sorry, why am I here? Why am I crying into your shirt?”

“I think you came to a place where you felt safe,” he says, hunting around in his things for a pack of tissues. 

“Not if it was going to make you feel bad.”

“My feelings are not part of this.” He’s quiet and gentle and he knows all about that sick swoop of fear that tears the bottom out of his stomach, that tears a hole into his laboring heart. 

“I, I’m sorry,” Iris says again.

“If it makes you feel better, apology accepted,” he says. “Now, it’s all right, you can cry all you want now because -- because maybe you won’t want your brother to see you crying.”

“He won’t mind,” she says around her hiccupping sobs. “But, but, Ignis I’m so worried, I don’t know what to think and, and they won’t tell me anything!”

“I know, I know, and -- let’s just hope it’s not as bad as either of us thinks,” he says, and hands her his own handkerchief instead.

It’s not exactly an impulse, either, when he looks at his desk and snatches up _The Thousand Names of the Senses_ , and presses it into her trembling hands. “Here. Take that with you when you go.”

“But you told me about this last week, you said it was important and you hadn’t read it in years!”

“I’ve been reading it,” he says, “and I still have a lot of it in my mind. I -- it will make me feel better, truly. And maybe Gladio will like it. I never asked you if he was interested in poetry -- ”

“I don’t know what he likes either,” Iris says, after a moment’s thought.

But it’s a moment when she’s not consumed by her fear or her grief, and he nods encouragement at her. “I believe there’ll be time for you and him to have that conversation. In the meantime, take that, so you have somewhere to start.” 

Huge eyes swimming in tears, and he makes himself be forthright when he meets them.

“Maybe it’s true what Dad says,” Iris says, after a moment. “About, about people who came home from the war. Doesn’t matter which war it was, or when it was. He says, if I want to find kind people, I have to look for the ones who’d been in the worst battles, the ones who’d been part of the hardest fights.”

“Your brother,” he says.

“He’s always been kind. Him and Dad,” Iris says. “And you, Ignis.”

“I hope to live up to that,” he tells her, as honest as he can be. 

He presses the book of poetry into her hands as she’s walking out the door, head held high, shoulders bent with the weight of her sorrows.

///

Noct becomes a constant presence in the bookshop in the days and weeks after Iris’s hasty departure, and Ignis starts taking that feline appetite into consideration when he orders lunch.

He tries to distract himself from his worries by printing up a set of _Lost Cat_ posters -- he’s still convinced Noct’s actual human family must be looking for him.

“He yours?” Cindy asks, at long last, when she makes it back into the store.

Ignis blinks, and looks down at the basket next to his feet, at the elegant ripples of feline muscle as Noct stretches out and shifts into another position, without actually waking from his nap. “I have no idea.”

“I know I’ve seen him before. Usually around here. He seems to like you.” Books in the crook of her arm, as well, but these are _for_ him, rather than something she’s picked up from looking around in the shelves. 

He takes the topmost book and tilts a sharply amused glance at her. “Of course you have advanced copies of these.”

“Perks,” Cindy says, cheerfully. “So, you want those now, or what?”

“I -- will borrow the first two,” he says, eventually. “I could use the distraction, honestly.”

“You sure do.” But she doesn’t sound unkind. She just flicks her fingertips in his direction. “Still worried about your friend, aren’t you.”

“I have not had any word -- but truthfully she doesn’t owe me that,” he says. “I -- I’m not part of the family.”

“Way you worry about her, seems you feel like she’s part of yours.”

He blinks. “That’s -- you’re not wrong.” 

After a moment, he laughs softly, and it feels like there’s a tense wire snapping within him -- relief, spreading warmth into him. “Maybe I do have a family after all. Including him,” he adds, inclining his head toward the cat.

“Yep, and count me in too,” Cindy says. “How was that scarf, by the way?”

“I’ve never owned anything warmer,” he says, smiling.

“Thank you very kindly. But now I’m fresh out of ideas for what to give you for, for your birthday. Is it coming up soon?”

“It is.” He shakes his head, a little. “I hadn’t really thought about it, and now it’s coming up fast.”

Cindy laughs softly. “If you’re going to have a party of some kind, make sure to invite me.” 

“Oh, I will,” he says.

///

No one inquires as to Noct, and so one night Ignis sighs and picks up the basket, and says to the cat that is twining around his ankles, “How would you like to come home with me?”

_Meow!_

And he laughs softly from the door, when Noct falls asleep, dissolving into a puddle of fur and tail, in the middle of investigating his rundown couch.

The next morning he orders more cat food, and asks for the delivery to be made to his apartment, instead of to the bookshop.

///

Warm heavy weight of purring and muscle when he wakes up one morning: purring and muscle that belongs to Noct, curled rumbling against the back of his head.

“You’re a menace,” he says, and he doesn’t mean a word of it.

He gets a smug sleepy chirp in response.

Finally he sits up, and hauls Noct into his lap for a thorough belly-rub -- and his phone chooses that moment to start jittering its way from beneath his pillows.

“What in the world,” he starts, and then -- “Oh bloody hell.”

Noct bats at his hand that’s gone still.

 _Bet you forgot it’s your birthday. Don’t go to work! Stay home! Watch crummy movies!_ is the message splashed on the screen, from Aranea.

And there are other messages, too: from Cindy, and from Biggs and Wedge, and from Talcott. Birthday wishes, animated images, and -- in the case of his comrades -- a clumsy, out-of-focus selfie and a short audio track.

“Happy birthday other boss, happy birthday, happy birthday,” they sing, in their horrendously flat voices, and then they’re laughing and that’s where the track cuts off, and Ignis shakes his head and replays the track a few more times, smiling all the while.

He seriously considers ignoring Aranea’s message, but first: he taps Noct between his eyes to catch his attention. “What do you think, should we go in to work today? And we can try walking together, too.”

Blink. Blink.

And then Noct rolls over and away, and those expressive ears droop completely.

Ignis blinks, too, and murmurs, gently, “Is that a no?”

Lash of a tail: not a playful flick but a definite movement from side to side.

And when Noct does it again, Ignis has to yank his hand out of the way: not that it would have been any kind of painful impact, but there’s suddenly so much tension in that long body, poised over his knees.

So he says, “Let’s stay in?” 

And Noct purrs in response, and goes liquid again.

“Silly.” But Ignis takes a photograph of him, and replies to Aranea: _I was going to go in to work until the cat thumped me. Thank you for the good advice. Should I watch your favorite movies?_

Chime of an almost immediate response. _I have excellent taste in movies thank you very much. Now go celebrate your birthday, ignore me! And tell that cat I support him!_

Noct follows him straight through to the kitchen when he finally pulls himself out of bed, and maybe it’s a little too cold and that’s why he’s limping, a little: but he makes an omelet and warms up some soup and then he doesn’t have to think about his knee any more.

Snow, falling, as his phone chimes again, as Noct makes short work of the contents of his food bowl.

An email from Iris, but there are no words in the body of the message: just a link, which he clicks on.

And the screen of his mobile phone fills with the lovely colors of a painting: a landscape of several shades of green beneath deep-blue skies and the looming gray of drifting thunderclouds. 

He zooms in at various points and there’s enough detail in the image that he can almost see the brushstrokes, the directions of the artist’s work, and then -- suddenly the image fades out into white text on a plain black background.

_Thank you for being so kind and encouraging. Finally I’m on my way home, and I have some good news to share with you: Gladio’s all right. He’s coming back, too -- he’ll need a couple of weeks of rehab and recovery and then they’re sending him straight home to me and to Dad. They gave him all sorts of medals for the last thing he did. My brother is a hero, and he’s always been one, and now there’re medals to prove it, but -- he never needed proof, not to me. Oh, and I’m sorry to miss your birthday -- please accept this for now, I’ll give you something else when I get back -- oh, and I promise to return your book, too! Thank you so much for sharing the poetry with us! Iris_

And Ignis bows his head, and smiles even as he feels the tears spring into his eyes.

Cat-weight warm in his lap, climbing, and that agile presence twining around him is almost as good as an embrace.

///

One evening he turns the bookshop lights on and -- it’s a small and sweet surprise, he thinks, to see empty shelves here and there. Books sold out and emergency requests for fresh copies, and order forms filled out and waiting next to the till, for new and published titles. 

In a few weeks he’ll be meeting one of Cindy’s friends for the first time: and this friend happens to be the novelist Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, and everywhere she goes, these days, the press is sure to follow.

He’ll have to tidy up the shop, he thinks, and he murmurs a greeting to one of his other regulars -- intricate beaded braids, and tiny arrowhead tattoos dotting his face and neck -- the man starts digging through the bins of children’s books and grins as he pulls out several titles.

“All’s well?” that man asks as Ignis rings up his purchases.

“All’s well,” he says, and offers a sheaf of order forms together with the change. “In case you come across something your pupils might be interested in.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, thanks -- I’ll ask the parents too. Never enough story books, you know?”

Ignis chuckles. “Never enough books, period.”

“On that we’re agreed. See you again soon.”

He’s cleaning the coffeemaker when there’s a knock on the front door: and that’s a surprise, he thinks, considering the sign that’s still flipped to say OPEN, and all the lights turned on, but he brushes the spent coffee-grounds from his hands and goes back out. “Yes, can I help you?”

Tall, tall angular silhouette at the front door, lit partway by the street lights, and Ignis blinks when he opens up to a broad-shouldered presence and kindly, but confused-looking eyes. An in-between hairstyle, not quite close-cropped. Vivid lines in that weathered face. “Feels a little silly to knock, but, well. Cat,” the man says. “I mean. You have one.”

Ignis blinks again, and eyes Noct where he’s lounging lazily next to the window and its full view of the street. “I am sorry, sir,” he says. “If you have an allergy to cats perhaps I can just step out for a moment and talk to you outside? I’m afraid my companion can be a little bit territorial.”

Quiet deep laugh. “It’s not the allergy thing I’m worried about. Or, I should say, I don’t think I have a cat allergy, but _he’s_ never been around cats before.”

“Sorry?”

And then he clocks the leash, looped around the man’s wrist and its wrapping of dark green support tape: follows the trailing length down to the sidewalk, down to the harness fastened around a heap of floppy ears and wagging too-long tail and bright puppy grin and golden-yellow fur. 

He can’t help but chuckle, and he quickly smothers it and tries to smooth his face back into some kind of professional calm. “Excuse me.”

“You can laugh, he likes that,” the man on the front step says as he gets on one knee to scrub enthusiastically between the puppy’s ears, to a squall of happy yips. “But he’s sorta small for his age, and like I said, I don’t think he’s ever met a cat before. So I kind of feel like he needs a little help.”

“I agree,” Ignis says. “If I could ask you to keep holding on to your companion, I’ll see what I can do for mine.”

Back behind the door, he reaches into his pocket for Noct’s leash. “Come on then,” he says.

The cat takes its sweet time moving towards him: and as soon as Noct is safely settled onto his shoulders, he clips the leash on, and then winds it loosely around his right wrist. “Behave,” he says, a little sternly.

Noct chirrups at him, and there’s definitely something curious in the tilt of those ears.

This time, Ignis opens the door very carefully and very cautiously, and he gets a front-row seat to the expressions crossing the man’s face: curiosity, interest, and perhaps amusement.

Out of the corner of his eye, he’s also watching Noct: who stretches, a little, and trills in the puppy’s direction.

The puppy all but jerks to attention where it’s now in the man’s arms, and maybe it really is grinning, or at least it doesn’t seem at all inclined to run or to attack or even to back down from the cat’s intense stare.

In fact, Ignis thinks the puppy might be staring right back.

“Interesting,” the man says, after another moment, and he’s not taking any care to suppress his grin.

So Ignis returns the smile. “We might be all right, but -- let’s see what happens next,” he says.

And: “Come in, please.”

“Been meaning to come here, actually, just had a whole mess of appointments to get out of the way first,” the man with the puppy says. His voice rises and falls as he meanders into the stacks. “Someone was telling me about the books.”

“I try to keep a fair mix,” Ignis says, as he ducks back behind the till, careful not to dislodge Noct despite his movements.

“A mix is always good. You do online orders and stuff like that?”

“Yes. I run out of the forms almost as quickly as I can print new ones up. It’s good to know people are still actively looking for all sorts of books these days, means I might stay in business a little longer.”

“It’d be nice to live nearby,” the man says. “To have a bookshop this nice within quick walking distance. I, I’d come by every day. Look at what’s new.”

Ignis laughs, a little. “I see I’m talking to someone very much after my own heart. Was there anything in particular that you were looking for today?”

“Looking for? Not really, not today, although -- what’s with the Lunafreya poster?”

Noct trills, again. It’s not the first time the cat has reacted to her name, and Ignis laughs some more, and allows the cat to nuzzle at his cheek. Brushes a finger over a large ear in response. “I -- might be meeting with her soon. We have a friend in common, and she’s looking for a place to do a signing in.”

“So, what -- you’re saying she might come here? My sister will like that. She just got through reading all of her books.”

“If I might ask, what else might your sister be interested in?”

The man finally comes up to the till, his puppy scrambling in his wake, and Ignis leans on the counter and takes him in: and the most prominent feature on the man’s face, other than the too-red lines of the scars cutting across his forehead and down the left side of his face, are his deep brown eyes, full of life and wariness.

The last of which tugs at Ignis’s emotions, and makes him cast a lopsided smile in the man’s direction.

“I dunno, I was under the impression she talks to you anyway,” the man says, after a while. “I mean, provided I’m in the right place. She told me to go visit this place. Described the owner. What’d she say? She said you looked kind. The sort of kind that a person who’d walked in bad places could be. The sort of kind that a person who’d been fighting a hard war could be -- ”

“Iris,” and Ignis isn’t sure he actually says the word, not until the man on the other side of the counter nods. “Iris said that. She said it was something her father says -- wait, her father -- and, oh. Her father -- and yours,” he says, and now he knows where he’s seen those eyes before. “You -- you must be Iris’s brother. She sent you here.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Amicitia, Gladiolus, actually. Everyone just calls me Gladio.”

Ignis blinks, and reaches a hand out to him. Doesn’t make contact. “So you’re all right. You -- you got out and, and you were decorated and all that. Iris mentioned that to me, when last we talked.”

“And all that, yeah, but that just means I’m a vet and I’ve got my medals, and I asked to be booked in with a shrink. Adjusting back to civilian life is hell and a half.”

Ignis lets his hand fall back onto the counter. “I know exactly what you mean. About being a veteran. About adjusting. And if you ask him,” here he shrugs one shoulder and that makes Noct meow, once, quiet sound, “I’ll be working on that for a long time yet.”

“Emotional support animal? Like this guy?” And he watches as Gladio tilts his head quickly in the direction of his puppy. “Or he’s in training to be one. We’re sort of going to classes together, or we will be once he’s used to being around me.”

Ignis looks over the counter, and smiles when the puppy braces himself on his front paws atop Gladio’s boot, and pants happily at him. “He seems comfortable enough with you, there.”

“He’s a handful, but he’s worth a laugh,” Gladio says, and Ignis thinks maybe he looks fond.

“Whereas mine is, well, he’s technically someone’s pet. Was. And now I’ve found that I’ve sort of taken over from them.” He rubs circles into the scruff of Noct’s neck. “He wandered in here, and never really decided to wander back out. I confess I don’t know what that makes him.”

“Wouldn’t know either. Just seems like he adopted you,” is Gladio’s amused reply. 

“He did.”

“Prompto,” is the next thing Gladio says. “Puppy’s name.”

And Noct chooses that moment to slide right off his shoulders -- the leash slips through Ignis’s fingers, and then the long lean length of black cat lands on the floor and slinks toward Prompto’s golden fluff -- 

“Noct,” he says, alarmed -- 

“Shit,” he thinks he hears Gladio say -- 

Ignis actually sees the puppy flinch, actually sees the shiver run down his back -- but the puppy plants itself next to Gladio’s boot and tries its best to growl at the cat that’s still advancing on it -- 

And Noct spends all of one second looming over Prompto before flopping over into a puddle of midnight-colored fur, presenting both throat _and_ belly to the puppy.

Prompto barks, once, small shrill sound, and Noct’s ear flaps in response, and apparently that’s what the puppy’s been waiting for, because then he’s padding over to Noct, because then he’s sprawling out: rounded head pushed into the crook of Noct’s front legs, tail draped over Noct’s back legs.

Click of a shutter next to him: Ignis blinks, and Gladio doesn’t look too convinced either, even as he changes the angle on his phone camera and takes another picture. 

“Send me one of those,” Ignis half-asks. 

“Yeah.” And then Gladio starts laughing softly. “First week on the job, less, and my ESA’s ditched me for -- a cat. Not even another dog. A cat. The nerve of him, really.”

“And it seems that my cat has thrown me over for a puppy -- a very adorable puppy, but still.” He has to laugh, too. The whole thing is nothing but ridiculous from one end to the other. “What is it my friends would say: ah, I believe the phrase is _how even_ ,” he says, and covers up the rest of the chuckle.

“Let me know if someone actually manages to answer that question,” Gladio says, and Ignis watches as the lines in his face turn pensive.

“I’m sure I will.” 

And he glances back at the half-cleaned coffeemaker, at the quiet of the bookshop at this late hour, and the tangle of dog and cat at his feet and Gladio’s.

Looks up, and tries to smile. 

And he holds his hand out again, over the counter. “Looks like they’re getting to know each other, and -- if you feel so inclined to do the same, you know where to find me.”

Brief instant of a poleaxed stare, and then: then he sees that bright smile, so much like Iris’s and so much unlike. 

Gladio’s hand is much larger and much warmer than his. Firm rough grip, oddly soothing.

“I would like that very much.”

_the end / the beginning_

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
